Stage

Before Stage, Vinay Singhal co-founded WittyFeed, a viral content website that achieved 420 million page views and 2.5 billion ad impressions in just two years. WittyFeed, launched in 2014, faced challenges, including a shutdown of its Facebook page in 2018, leading Vinay and his team to rebrand the platform as Stage OTT in 2019. After losing a ₹40 crore revenue company overnight, Vinay Singhal returned to his village Noonsar, Haryana's Dhiwani district, in search of a subsequent adventure. A return to his village also made him privy to an opportunity to develop a hyper-local OTT platform that caters to vernacular audiences.

Stage is a first-of-its-kind OTT platform for local dialects. "In India, there are more than 40 OTT platforms. They broadcast language-based content in the name of vernacular content, like in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu." Stage goes one level deeper to dialects within states creating hyperlocal entertainment for communities whose storytelling traditions are not captured in any existing language-based OTT. Stage is the world's first hyperlocal dialect OTT platform producing and distributing 100% original entertainment content in Indian regional dialects (currently Haryanvi and Rajasthani, with planned expansion to Bhojpuri, Magahi, Maithili, and 15+ additional dialects) for audiences who have never had professional-quality entertainment in their mother tongue available on demand.

Amount Asked: ₹3 crore Equity Offered: 1% Implied Pre-Money Valuation: ₹300 crore

India's first OTT platform designed to cater to regional audiences. The founders came with a single question why are there TV series and movies in limited languages? "Boliyon (regional dialects) ka apna koi channel nahi hota aajkal, when there are 19,000+ regional languages in India." Parveen introduced the team in a Haryanvi style. The Haryanvi-language introduction speaking the dialect that Stage's content is produced in, directly to the Shark panel was Season 2's most mission-embodied pitch opening. Parveen did not translate; he simply spoke Haryanvi, implicitly demonstrating that Stage's content serves an audience the Sharks cannot fully access in English or standard Hindi.

Anupam Mittal was the most analytically engaged immediately recognising WittyFeed's heritage and the founders' resilience in rebuilding. Vineeta Singh recognised WittyFeed and appreciated the platform's cultural mission. However, she had concerns about the scalability timeline — expanding to 20+ dialects over 5 years requires enormous content investment at ₹20 lakh per web series Aman Gupta was drawn to the platform's community-building potential and the regional content opportunity. Namita Thapar was moved by both the social mission (giving voice to India's dialectal communities) and the commercial model. Peyush Bansal led the deal-making within the Shark coalition. His operational instincts identified the specific use of capital (content production, subscriber acquisition) and negotiated the terms. He joined alongside Aman and Namita.

The founders asked for ₹3 crore for 1% equity (₹300 crore valuation). At a valuation of ₹250 crores, Aman, Namita, and Peyush offered ₹1.5 crores for 0.6% equity and ₹1.5 crores in debt at 18% interest. The founders accepted this offer. The deal was struck at ₹250 crore pre-money valuation a slight markdown from the founders' ₹300 crore ask but still one of Season 2's highest deal valuations, and consistent with Stage's most recent Series A round valuation (₹250 crore pre-money).

Vinay Singhal, Parveen Singhal, and Shashank Vaishnav accepted the joint offer from Aman Gupta, Namita Thapar, and Peyush Bansal of ₹1.5 crore for 0.6% equity plus ₹1.5 crore debt at 18% interest at a ₹250 crore pre-money valuation. The deal was half the capital requested (₹3 crore ask → ₹1.5 crore equity received) but at the founders' most recent Series A valuation, protecting the equity pricing they had established with institutional investors.